Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
-
Hi,
There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page.
What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages.
I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to:
1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords,
2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page
3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps.
My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it.
Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated.
Thanks in advance
-
How many products and categories do they have? And will these change by season, year, etc.? Will the number of products grow fast or do you see them staying stable for the near future (18 months to 2 years).
The reason I ask is that planning for future growth -- or no growth -- can help you determine the best solution.
-- Jewel
-
Hi agree there is no right answer - but we need a starting point, and the below works very well for us.
We target 1 keyword per page, however, expand on same for context to the main keyword. So let's say someone makes a blog on "I can't sleep". We would target "cant sleep" - as the head term as in Australia that has circa 1900 searches a month. "Ï cant sleep" is 590 per month. So in this instance, we would recommend the URL for the content www.website.com.au/cant-sleep
The Title
Cant Sleep | Why Cant I Sleep | Forty Winks
H1
I Cant sleep
H2 (Not overly necessary, but if we can squeeze it in)
What do to when you cant sleep
This is a rare term where the grammar is not ideal. But that is what we would recommend consistent with customer queries. One keyword per page gives you a starting point, then as the page is crawled by google webmaster lets you do a deeper dive into what it perceives the page should rank for.
Adjust accordingly and deliver what the customer wants.
Hope that helps.
-
Hi there,
The bad news is that there's no "right" answer to this question. Search engines only reveal so much about what goes into their ranking algorithms, so it's hard to say what strategy is the best one.
One thing that's for sure, though, is that you want to avoid Google viewing your keyword optimization as keyword stuffing. I would strongly advise against the second option you mentioned (optimizing for several different keywords), because that would mean you'd mention three or four different keywords multiple times, which Google might view as keyword stuffing and/or providing a poor user experience. Both of these things could result in lower rankings.
The safe, and generally effective, bet is to choose one primary keyword that's as specific and relevant to your page as possible while still averaging a decent monthly search volume, and back it up with a secondary keyword that's also extremely relevant but isn't your primary keyword because it doesn't have as high a search volume. That way, you'll draw relevant search traffic to your page without it feeling spammy.
Hope that helps. Happy optimizing!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
Meta keywords
should every site have meta keywords or is this not used anymore? I don't use yoast and prefer rank math but there is nowhere to insert it. when I look at moz bar it shows meta keywords as a field so maybe it is important...
On-Page Optimization | | Mosaj0 -
Noindex child pages (whose content is included on parent pages)?
I'm sorry if there have been questions close to this before... I've using WordPress less like a blogging platform and more like a CMS for years now... For content management purposes we organize a lot of content around Parent/Child page (and custom-post-type) relationships; the Child pages are included as tabbed content on the Parent page. Should I be noindexing these child pages, since their content is already on the site, in full, on their Parent pages (ie. duplicate content)? Or does it not matter, since the crawlers may not go to all of the tabbed content? None of the pages have shown up in Moz's "High Priority Issues" as duplicate content but it still seems like I'm making the Parent pages suffer needlessly... Anything obvious I'm not taking into consideration? By the by, this is my first post here @ Moz, which I'm loving; this site and the forums are such a great resource! Anyways, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | rsigg0 -
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
On-Page Optimization | | Grafimart0 -
Target keywords on homepage or sub page?
Is it better to target main keywords on a site's homepage, or in a sub page. I would usually assume the homepage, but if the domain for the homepage doesn't include the keyword is it better to have a sub page with an exact match URL? For example we target the keyword "abc123" Is it better to optimise the homepage: brandname.com Or create a page to target it: brandname.com/abc123/ And leave the homepage to target brand keywords, but link to the "abc123" page. Whats the best option?
On-Page Optimization | | timscullin0 -
Too many links on page -- how to fix
We are getting reports that there are too many links on most of the pages in one of the sites we manage. Not just a few too many... 275 (versus <100 that is the target). The entire site is built with a very heavy global navigation, which contains a lot of links -- so while the users don't see all of that, Google does. Short of re-architecting the site, can you suggest ways to provide site navigation that don't violate this rule?
On-Page Optimization | | novellseo2 -
Optimizing for another keyword than the menu name
Hi I would like to hear if someone could help me decide whether or not it is important regarding SEO that the menu name is the same as the keyword we want to rank for. The site is a static site and one of our most important keywords. To give an example. Our menu name is "cars" and we want to rank for "cheap rental cars".
On-Page Optimization | | KennethK0 -
Creating New Pages Versus Improving Existing Pages
What are some things to consider or things to evaluate when deciding whether you should focus resources on creating new pages (to cover more related topics) versus improving existing pages (adding more useful information, etc.)?
On-Page Optimization | | SparkplugDigital0